Did you know that on this day in history Alcoholics Anonymous was founded, Saab made its first auto, and the first Apple II computer shipped? That was then, this is what’s happening today:

This is part of a 1977 advert for the Apple II. Yup, he’s working the numbers over a cuppa joe while she’s chopping food for dinner. At least they’re both in the kitchen, eh?

1. Google has just spent around $400 million to buy Admeld–a service to keep “premium publishers on the cutting edge of advertising tech,” which has a client list including Fox News and Answers.com. Admeld has just raised $30 million in venture funding, but will now find its future interwoven with Google’s existing, extensive and market-dominating Net ad service.

2. The arrival of Apple’s iMessage system this week has caused much discussion about the death of traditional SMS and rival with BlackBerry’s popular BBM system (one big draw for younger RIM clients). But it’s now said Google has already developed a similar messaging system for Android–one that’s far different from existing gtalk IM systems, and which also uses the data backchannel from Android phones to circumvent SMS charges.

3. Apple has taken big steps to intervene in the lawsuit against several of its developers, coming from patent law firm Lodsys, by filing papers to step in to the existing suit–it’s already filed its answer to the plaintiff’s complaint and a counterclaim. There may be a precedent for the court to let Apple intervene, and the computer firm states it’s trying to do so to protect “individuals or small entities with far fewer resources than Apple.” Developers are important.

4. Security firm viaForensics sniffed through a number of popular iOS and Android apps and found that Netflix, LinkedIn and Foursquare all stored user account passwords in a plain-readable unencrypted format–an inexcusable security slip-up. Square’s iOS app also keeps user’s signatures, transaction amounts and the final four figures of a credit card number unencrypted–not enough to be a problem, unless thieves were really enterprising, but still inexcusable.

5. Behold the Weiner effect: In the period after Rep. Anthony Weiner was embroiled in his lewd photo Twitter disaster, members of Congress have, en masse, slowed their tweet rate. In fact tweets from both parties reduced their tweet rate by around 30% this week. Another sign of the sheer power that Twitter now wields.

About the author

I'm covering the science/tech/generally-exciting-and-innovative beat for Fast Company. Follow me on Twitter, or Google+ and you'll hear tons of interesting stuff, I promise.
I've also got a PhD, and worked in such roles as professional scientist and theater technician...thankfully avoiding jobs like bodyguard and chicken shed-cleaner (bonus points if you get that reference!)